chad1323ross

Woo-hoo! Had the honor of visiting Wellington today. Met with Peter and his incredible staff. They were VERY careful to keep us away from the "relabeling" center, which was keeping his daughter busy earning back to school clothes cash. Peter threatened to have me run over by a forklift if I got to nosy ;-)

Thanks for the great tour, Peter. Looking forward to having a go at my guess. I think I'm a leg up, having had the opportunity to try so many of your wines today to refresh my palate without having to open one of each of your varietals I have in my collection!

SonomaBouliste

chad1323ross wrote:Woo-hoo! Had the honor of visiting Wellington today. Met with Peter and his incredible staff. They were VERY careful to keep us away from the "relabeling" center, which was keeping his daughter busy earning back to school clothes cash. Peter threatened to have me run over by a forklift if I got to nosy ;-)

Thanks for the great tour, Peter. Looking forward to having a go at my guess. I think I'm a leg up, having had the opportunity to try so many of your wines today to refresh my palate without having to open one of each of your varietals I have in my collection!

SonomaBouliste

smlauren wrote:How is the button not bouncing?
WD & SB must have a thousand of these things.

;) Even if we must, the button she should bounce. At this point I'd have to believe that one or two "in for three"'s would do it. C'mon you guyses, daughter # 1 is looking for one more pair of shoes (her nickname is Imelda).

SonomaBouliste

nematic wrote:so, peter, did you forget to label a tank, or did the label-applier on the bottling line mis-fire? But really, an awesome idea, though I do pity your child - were they aware going in how many hundreds of bottles the woot crazies may order?

Hundreds? She's gotta come back again tomorrow, trying to make more $ than her sister did last week.

Opened wine 1 hour before dinner.
The color was a brighter red than I imagined it would be; a very pretty red color.

Initial aroma was of a traditional Cabernet Sauvignon. I smelled fruit, oak, pepper, and a very earthy almost dirt aroma, which for me was very pleasant. The legs were a bit thin, but kept their shape down the side of the glass.

The initial taste upon opening was earthy and peppery. I knew it needed to breath and would be enjoyable with dinner. The initial mouth feel was chalky and peppery.

1 hour later with dinner: What a transformation! The taste was a bit fruitier, still very earthy, a sweet black pepper taste, some oak, other spices, maybe cinnamon, much more smooth. Very pleasant wine with dinner, and I think the rosemary rub was a nice accompaniment with the earthy flavors. The chalky mouth feel was gone, the tannins smoothed, though not completely. Not knowing much about aging, I would guess this would age well for 3-5 years or so. I could just taste a hint of things to come.

Since mr sanity was away from home, I invited my neighbors to join me for dinner and tasting. They only drink whites. Their initial response upon opening was, "what's that feeling on my tongue? chalk?", but with the meal, they enjoyed the wine very much. On their own, they noticed how much smoother the wine tasted after time and with the food. We gathered around the pond in the garden enjoying the cooler evening air and the remnants of the wine. Fisticuffs ensued over the last glass in the bottle. I would not want to sleep at their house tonight!

I'm sorry about the late post; I had to finally kick out the neighbors. Besides, they were wanting to get in the wine fridge, and see what other Wellington wines were hiding in there. They kept saying, "but we don't usually like reds, why do we like this?" and I was secretly hoping they would not discern the label on the Cuvee R.

This wine was a revelation with the food, and just a hint of what the future holds. Well done, SB, and thanks WD.

Cesare

You can find the cyberpub (and other things) here.
Also found by clicking "the community" at the top of any wine.woot page.

-il CesareSole Absolute Triple
Exalted High Tastemaster Supreme
“In the entire world there are only a few sounds that bring joy to all but the most jaded. One is the murmur of a kitten purring. Another is the thwack of a well-pitched baseball hitting a perfectly swung bat. And the third is the pop of a cork being pulled from a bottle of wine.” —George Taber

Edit: We visited Wellington on the morning of Day 2. AND he came to dinner with HUGE presents ... two very nice old Wellington wines. mmmmmmm ...... Wellington old wine ......

x20

Someone has to put WD's kids thru college, but why does it have to be me! *This post is for purposes of enabling only, and does not constitute any promise of helping pay for said enabling. It does indicate willingness to assist in drinking said wine.

MarkDaSpark

Quick review: What are you waitng for?? Buy this before they sell out!

(Really)

More detailed review: This wine is a very good example of why merlot is so popular across the world...smooth, very easy to drink, feels great in the mouth, moderate complexity. A great wine to share with new and old wine lovers.

First glance: Beautiful deep ruby color. Clear.

First sniff: Nothing over-powering--blackberry, plum with a touch of cherry licorice. Later on, noticed a little leather and more pronounced blackberry.

First taste: mmmmm smooth, soft tannins, fairly well balanced---really like the way it feels in my mouth. Nice finish, no sudden drop-off. Palate feels like it is smiling.

This wine is fine on it's own...hard to imagine not finishing what you started with this bottle.

It also pairs well with moderately spicey food (tortellini with meat sauce tonight)...and would probably pair well with a wide range of food.

Can't wait to try Wellington's other wines in this three (four?)some.

Thanks woot!

Cheers!

Good review! Thanks! Your labrat review has been added to the labrat hall of fame here. Link takes you to page one of the labrat threads (Thanks Cheron!) where you can link to any of the previous labrat reports since Cheron started the thread. Your link will be in the Current Offering.

x20

Someone has to put WD's kids thru college, but why does it have to be me! *This post is for purposes of enabling only, and does not constitute any promise of helping pay for said enabling. It does indicate willingness to assist in drinking said wine.

MarkDaSpark

Last wooter to woot: michelson45
although for this winery and this group, maybe this bouncing smiley would be more appropriate?

x20

Someone has to put WD's kids thru college, but why does it have to be me! *This post is for purposes of enabling only, and does not constitute any promise of helping pay for said enabling. It does indicate willingness to assist in drinking said wine.

darlenee1

deaconbluez

jstutman wrote:Anyone aware of shipping time to Missouri? Im leaving for Virginia next week for 5 months but I really want to order this and hopefully get it before I leave

If you haven't already ordered, I doubt you'll have it in time. I live in Mid-MO; when I order on Monday, I usually get the wine the following Tuesday or Wednesday. If I order after Monday, I normally don't get my wine until the following Thursday or Friday.

"I prefer a thief to a Congressman. A thief will take your money and be on his way, but a Congressman will stand there and bore you with the reasons why he took it." -Dr. Williams

SneezyKevinA

I went in for one yesterday. My wife will probably kill me when she finds out since I had just split 9 cases of wine with my dad......had to fill the 117 bottle wine rack I just built. I'm up to 150 bottles now. Might have to build another wine rack, llo

aranderson

This is my second wine.woot purchase (the first being the Ty Caton three-pack) and again I did it solely based on people's comments. So thanks for making me broke again. :-) I have yet to try any of the Ty but I have a feeling I won't be let down with either of my purchases.

cheron98

Oh and I think we can start saying that Peter's wines are the reds for white drinkers. Given sanity's rattage and my experience last night, we have two solid examples of people who swear off of reds that totally loved the Wellington. I shared some of the 03 Merlot with my neighbor last night, and she just does not like reds. So she was all kinds of skeptical. But she absolutely loved it and was shocked by how good it was.

I think it's because his wines are so well balanced, you just really don't get that dry-mouth tannic feel that so many of the BIG reds give.

So those of you who are still holding out because you "only like whites", give this a try! Seriously! Just buy one set, it's a good sampling of Peter's varietals, at a fantastic price. And if you don't like it, well, I'm sure there's plenty of us here who'll be glad to take the rest off your hands

UBlink

Let's see, I drank one bottle of Wellington this week (2003 Sonoma County Cab - excellent) and just bought 8 more (with a case still in transit from the RPM tour). Going to have to work on the drinking more and buying less (yeah, right).

Following the eight word profile, political economy in eight words:
Ain't no free lunch - them what has gets.

SonomaBouliste

schuey wrote:Finally went in for a set. Was hoping to be responsible for the sell out, but that honor will go to someone else.

SB:

Any thoughts on why Vaynerchuk wasn't very impressed with the 2004 Zin? He's been pretty pleased with his past samplings of Wellington, so I was curious why you think he wasn't feeling this one?

I still haven't opened either of the Victory or the Reserve Syrah bottles from the offering earlier this year. Any thoughts on how long I can hold these?

Thanks!

This is our "entry level" Zin; it's not a blockbuster fruit bomb like our Meeks Hilltop Ranch Zin, nor does it have the intensity of the Chase Zin that GV also tasted that episode. Although it is 14.8% alc., this is more of a balanced, "food wine" type of Zin. I think his description of the wine was pretty accurate. As far as numerical scores, if you've been reading my blogs and posts over the last year plus you know how much I think the concept Hoovers.

JOATMON

SonomaBouliste wrote:This is our "entry level" Zin; it's not a blockbuster fruit bomb like our Meeks Hilltop Ranch Zin, nor does it have the intensity of the Chase Zin that GV also tasted that episode. Although it is 14.8% alc., this is more of a balanced, "food wine" type of Zin. I think his description of the wine was pretty accurate. As far as numerical scores, if you've been reading my blogs and posts over the last year plus you know how much I think the concept Hoovers.

Hoovers? A bit british?

(for those of you not on the joke, England uses the generic "hoover" for vacuuming. "I'm going to hoover the rug now." And yes, in that context the term is lower case).

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